This game was so bad it actually destroyed the life of the Atari 2600. The Atari 2600 had a game where General Custer raped Indians tied to cactuses, and THAT couldn't kill the system. Here's how E.T. did it: most of the gameplay was E.T. trying to escape from scientists and jumping into pits to find parts of his telephone. Once you were in a pit, that's when the fun began. If there was no chunk of telephone in the pit, which was only the case in 97% of them, you could leave by stretching out ET's neck until he slowly, SLOWLY floated up. This was the most satisfying part of the game since it looked like an invisible monster was trying to tear his head off.

If you've been paying attention to the hints and believing in yourself enough, then you've done it-- you've made it out of the pit! Now just 2000 more to go. Here's the bad news, though: if you're still playing by this point, the government's on its way over to your house to put you in a special camp for dangerous stupids.

When you make it to the top of the pit, which if you started in 1983 should be about... NOW, you have a fraction of a second window to immediately stop making ET's head stretch. This is important. If you miss it, he'll fall right back in and you have to start the floating process all over. Don't worry, practice and timing can make you a master of exiting a pit, and then you'll only fall back into the same one seven or eight times. Of course, that just means seven or eight more times the FUN!

Graphics: 0/10
ET has never looked worse. Which is a pretty amazing accomplishment since he started out looking like a slimy little space turtle's penis.

Fun: 0/10
This is an actual true story: Atari manufactured five million E.T. cartridges, and according to Atari's CEO, "nearly all of them came back." It got to a point where the world's children refused to take them for free. To put that into perspective, I've seen kids buy dead spiders from each other for a nickle. Calling this game a piece of trash is actually scientifically accurate because Atari eventually took their massive collection of useless E.T. cartridges and buried it in a New Mexico landfill. So if you ever lose your mind and want a copy of E.T., or maybe five million, grab a shovel and drive out to the desert. They're free.

A Little Boy's Love: 10/10
E.T. can make you press the power button on his game, but the power button to his heart... that was inside you the whole time.